Counselling and Psychotherapy (Taught)

If you're interested in supporting people and the world of the psyche intrigues you, you can make an immense impact on the lives of others by becoming a counsellor or psychotherapist.

Develop as a therapist and explore your interests through a range of practical exercises and academic challenges. In your clinical practice, support people as they work through their life challenges, mental health struggles, relationship difficulties and experiences of loss.

Course Overview
On this course, you will develop understanding and practical skills to support your work with others as they explore and experience various forms of psychological difficulty and distress. You will encounter different models of mental health and wellbeing, with a focus on developing therapeutic practice grounded in the person-centred and wider humanistic approaches. You may work with clients presenting with a wide range of issues – including those who are experiencing or have experienced difficulties such as grief, loss, addiction, anxiety, low mood or trauma.

On this course you will...

• Explore and apply counselling and psychotherapeutic literature to current issues, contexts and experiences with a specific focus on the person centred modality.

• Be given high quality support and guidance by our lecturing team who are active in their research and practice.

• Learn valuable transferrable skills in PG research, which are highly sought after by employers.

• Have the opportunity to choose topics and areas that you want to learn more about to tailor your learning experience through your assessments e.g. ethical dilemmas, literature reviews and case studies.

• On graduation, you will be eligible to apply for individual membership of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), and may also apply for registration, subject to passing the BACP Certificate of Proficiency.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
You will learn to adopt a person-centred approach to your work, with the opportunity to learn about and critically evaluate other approaches such as CBT, solution-focused and systemic ways of working. Though the focus is on adults, you will also be introduced to working with couples, children and families. Emphasis is placed on developing research skills and your understanding of evidence-based practice.

During the course, you will need to do 100 supervised counselling practice hours. You will be expected to make arrangements for your own placement but will be offered support from the counselling team.

In the first semester, you will attend a weekend residential that focuses on your personal and professional development, and you will also be expected to have 10 hours of your own personal therapy.

A full range of assessment methods has been selected in order to enhance student learning and to help students to demonstrate the extent to which they have achieved all the module learning outcomes, and, overall, the programme aims. Each module’s learning outcomes relate to the module assessment item(s). Students have an opportunity across the programme to self-reflect on their progression and their development. These self-reflections contribute to and are evidenced in assessments through a variety of means.

Types and methods of assessment will include group seminars and presentations; essays; a portfolio of evidence (achievement of clinical competences and written evidence); viva, examination; OSCE/practical skills assessments; map of patient/client experience; reflective essay; community health profile; reflective incident recording; poster presentation; dissertation

Modules use formative and summative assessment so that students progress through a module in a structured and constructive way and build knowledge for practice in a coherent and logical way. Formative assessments are designed so that feedback on the individual student’s performance is provided prior to the submission of the final, summative assessment – though this does not contribute to the final module mark or the credit awarded. The wordage – or equivalent – for both formative and summative assessments is counted towards the whole module assessment wordage.